He left the shop with his coffee. The sun was higher in the sky, and there were a few cars along Route 1A now. He decided to walk back home; later he would get in touch with Grace again, make sure she told the police what she knew. He walked along the sandy edge of the road. There was a breeze from the east, and the air held the smell of the ocean. As he approached Kennewick Village he was about to veer off toward York Street and back to Grey Lady, but decided at the last moment to walk past the house where Grace was living. It was too early to visit, but maybe if he just walked by . . .
The house looked quiet and empty in the morning light. Harry glanced up at Grace’s second-floor window; it was hard to know for sure, but he thought her lights were on. He walked halfway to the door, thinking maybe he’d knock gently just in case she was up. But then he stopped; the door was open. Not by a lot, but it was cracked by about six inches. He almost turned back, knowing suddenly that something was wrong. He stood frozen for a few moments, then continued toward the door. He could peer inside, and listen. When he reached the door, he pressed his palm against it and pushed. The inside of his mouth was coated with the cloying taste of the sweet coffee.
Grace was on the floor of the foyer, her bare feet pointed toward the door. He knew she was dead but said her name anyway, his voice no louder than a croak. He stepped through the doorway. She was wearing the clothes she’d been in the night before. A striped shirt and jeans. One arm was flung over her head, the other down by her side.
“Grace,” he said louder, hopeful, but when he took another step inside the house, he could see what had happened to her. Her skull, on the left side, was collapsed inward, her hair sticky with blood. Her purple jaw didn’t line up with the rest of her head.
Bile rose in the back of Harry’s throat, and he closed his eyes for a moment. He took a step backward, felt the blood rushing from his head, and took hold of the door frame.
He touched his pocket, even though he knew he didn’t have a phone with him. He took one quick look into the foyer again, past Grace’s body, and saw a phone on a waist-high table. Keeping his eyes on the phone, he went to it. It was an old landline, squat like a toad, and he half expected it to not have a dial tone when he picked up the receiver and pressed it to his ear.
Part 2
Black Water
Chapter 22
Now
Caitlin McGowan reread the e-mail for what must have been the fiftieth time. It was from Grace, her sister, and it had been sent probably just hours before she’d been murdered.
I know you’re going to freak out, C, but I’m in maine. I came up after I heard B died, just after we talked. I found an airbnb and drove up to go to the funeral. I just couldn’t stay in new york and pretend it wasn’t happening. I needed to see her.
Sorry, I know I’m not making sense. I’ll slow down. I’m exhausted and wired at the same time, and I’ve barely eaten today. B’s son Harry was just here. He came by to tell me that there’s now a suspect, that Alice told the police B was having an affair with someone in town, and she thinks this woman’s husband was the one who killed B. SHE’S MAKING IT UP, and that makes me think that Alice actually did have something to do with B’s death. First of all, B was not seeing someone else. I told Harry that and he looked at me like I was deluded, and you’re probably thinking the same thing. But he WASN’T. Alice made it up because she found a way to kill him, and now that the police know it wasn’t an accident, she needs someone else to blame.
The son is CUTE. He’s an age-appropriate B, right down to his pure emotional blockage. When I saw him at the funeral my knees literally buckled and then I saw the way Alice was hovering over him and I wanted to swoop in and save him. I went to the bookstore because I thought Alice might be there and I could see her up close but he was there, and then I was telling him I was looking for a job. I could tell he was into me, or maybe it was just that he could tell that I was lying about why I was there at the store. He texted me, and asked me out for drinks, like a real date. He told me all about his life, and I made up a story about coming to maine to get away from it all, but he didn’t believe it (you know I’m a lousy liar) so he came here tonight, and I told him EVERYTHING. And then all I could see was how he was blaming me for what happened to his father, that I started it all, and then I didn’t know if I was just projecting my own guilt onto him.
I feel like my skin is on fire I’m so anxious. I just decided to go to the police in the morning and tell them EVERYTHING. Who knows if they’ll care, but then I’ll be done with it. I have nothing to hide and no one to protect. And as soon as I do that, then I am hightailing it away from maine, and, look, I buried the lead (lede?): Can I come stay with you? Not forever, but for a few days. I’m done with new york, and I can’t stay here, and I really don’t want to move back in with mom, at least not right now. I know you’ve told me in the past that I can come anytime but I still wanted to ask. I’ll be in boston tomorrow. You’re probably asleep but write me back as soon as you get this. xoxo g
Caitlin shut her laptop. She’d shared the e-mail with Detective Dixon, bringing it up on her phone at the station to show him earlier in the day. He’d read it, then asked Caitlin if she could forward it to him.
“What do you think about it?” she asked him.
“I wish she’d come to us earlier,” the detective said, and the words made Caitlin’s stomach hurt. It must have shown on her face, because he quickly continued, “But who knows if it would have made a difference? It’s not a smoking gun. Plenty of people have affairs and don’t end up being murdered.”
“But the fact that Grace got killed must mean that Bill Ackerson was as well, that it’s connected?”
“There’s no indication that Alice was even aware of your sister’s existence.”
“Why? Because she says she wasn’t?”
“Can I ask you some questions about Grace?” the detective said, hunching his shoulders forward like he had a kink in his back. Caitlin noticed that he had a scar above his right eye where his eyebrow didn’t grow.
“Sure,” Caitlin said, and settled back into the molded plastic chair. They were at a small conference table toward the back of the station, in a glass-encased room. There was a whiteboard that had been erased clean of all but a few random, smudged words: names, cell, separate. The detective had brought her here to show her photographs of Grace’s lifeless face for purposes of identification. Caitlin had received a frantic call from her mother early that morning, telling her that she’d just heard from the Kennewick Police Department, looking for identification of a body carrying a Michigan driver’s license in the name of Grace Ellen McGowan. Caitlin volunteered to drive up to Maine. During the hour-and-a-half drive, in a state of unreal shock, she’d alternated between bewildered grief and a desperate hope that it was all a misunderstanding. When the detective put the first photograph down in front of Caitlin, she had had a moment of pure relief wash over her. It wasn’t Grace. The face they were showing her was a young woman, but with fuller cheeks than Grace had, with puffier eyes.
Caitlin shook her head. “I don’t . . . I don’t think . . .”